Difference between revisions of "The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of World Order"
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'''The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order''' is a book written by [[Harvard]] professor [[Samuel P. Huntington]] in which he states that it is his belief that the conflict of the Post Cold War era is going to be derived from religious/cultural differences. | '''The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order''' is a book written by [[Harvard]] professor [[Samuel P. Huntington]] in which he states that it is his belief that the conflict of the Post Cold War era is going to be derived from religious/cultural differences. | ||
| − | While first received positively, after the [[9/11 attacks]] Huntington's thesis was widely criticized for his famous quotation, "[[Islam]]'s borders are bloody and so are its innards,"<ref>“Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for [[the West]] is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/38041.Samuel_P_Huntington</ref> implying Islam was at [[war]] with much of the rest of the world. The [[George W. Bush]] [[State Department]] immediately repudiated the claim that the [[War on Terror]] was a clash of civilizations, and attempted to limit the conflict by isolating and marginalizing radical Islamic extremists.<ref>"radical Islamic extremists" or "jihadists". A question remained to what extent [[jihad]] was inherent to Islam, or "[[secularization]]" vs. "[[desecularization]]."</ref> | + | While first received positively, after the [[9/11 attacks]] Huntington's thesis was widely criticized for his famous quotation, "[[Islam]]'s borders are bloody and so are its innards,"<ref>“Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for [[the West]] is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/38041.Samuel_P_Huntington</ref> implying Islam was at [[war]] with much of the rest of the world. The [[George W. Bush]] [[State Department]] immediately repudiated the claim that the [[War on Terror]] was a clash of civilizations, and attempted to limit the conflict by isolating and marginalizing radical Islamic extremists.<ref>"radical Islamic extremists" or "jihadists". A question remained to what extent [[jihad]] was inherent to Islam, or "[[secularization]]" vs. "[[desecularization]]." The [[GW Bush Administration]] feared the United States military was no match for 128 million Muslims between the ages of 12 and 28 who were susceptible to [[radical]]ization.</ref> |
==China== | ==China== | ||
Revision as of 19:39, May 12, 2024
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is a book written by Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington in which he states that it is his belief that the conflict of the Post Cold War era is going to be derived from religious/cultural differences.
While first received positively, after the 9/11 attacks Huntington's thesis was widely criticized for his famous quotation, "Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards,"[1] implying Islam was at war with much of the rest of the world. The George W. Bush State Department immediately repudiated the claim that the War on Terror was a clash of civilizations, and attempted to limit the conflict by isolating and marginalizing radical Islamic extremists.[2]
China
Huntington wrote of China:
| It appears probable that for most of history China had the world's largest economy. The diffusion of technology and the economic development of non-Western societies in the second half of the twentieth century are now producing a return to the historical pattern. This will be a slow process, but by the middle of the twenty-first century, if not before, the distribution of economic product and manufacturing output among the leading civilizations is likely to resemble that of 1800. The two-hundred-year Western "blip" on the world economy will be over.[3] |
Ukraine
Huntington wrote about Ukraine:
| the restraint of Russian and Ukrainian leaders prevented this issue from generating violence, and the election two months later of the pro-Russian Kuchma as Ukrainian president undermined the Crimean thrust for secession.
That election did, however, raise the possibility of the western part of the country seceding from a Ukraine that was drawing closer and closer to Russia. Some Russians might welcome this. As one Russian general put it, "Ukraine or rather Eastern Ukraine will come back in five, ten or fifteen years. Western Ukraine can go to hell!" Such a rump Uniate and Western-oriented Ukraine, however, would only be viable if it had strong and effective Western support. Such support is, in turn, likely to be forthcoming only if relations between the West and Russia deteriorated seriously and came to resemble those of the Cold War.[4] |
Criticism
The book was met with consternation and anger by some, who saw this work as an oversimplification of the incredible complexity of international affairs. There were many errors to point in this direction; for example, Huntington classified Israel as a nation in the Muslim Culture. The academic journal Foreign Affairs published a refutation of the book, entirely in verse, quoted below:
- "We owe to Samuel Huntington a potent provocation,
- A trenchant tract to counteract a clear exaggeration:
- The notion that the West has won, its culture now supreme,
- His book rejects--and then corrects--as wishful in extreme.
- For, he insists, our world consists of cultural formations
- Arising (and revising) out of eight great civilizations.
- He sets our pulses pounding and our wisdom teeth to gnashing
- With come-to-blows scenarios of different cultures clashing.
- This is of course a tour de force, but somewhere in the tour,
- Huntington has been undone by paradigm-amour."
Although partly a joke - a jab that the book can be so easily dismissed as with a poem - the poem encapsulates most of the criticisms of Huntington's work.[1]
See also
External links
- The Clash of Civilizations?, Samuel P. Huntington, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993.
